Home

Services

Contact

Workshops

FAQ

About

News

Articles

Links

Travel

Readings

Ideas

Search

Webs For Sale

Web Sites

 
 
 

 

 

Multimedia Resources

© 2009 Max Lent

Movies

The best source of movie information on the Web is The Internet Movie Database http://www.imdb.com.  It will answer all of your film questions and also show you trailers for most recent films.

I love watching movie trailers.  Most new films publisher their trailers at http://www.apple.com/trailers/.  You will need to install a free player, Quicktime, to watch the previews and you will also need a broadband connection to fully enjoy the previews in HD.  I watch all of my movie previews at Apple.com.  (New 5/09)

DVD rental

I've tried them all and Netflix is the best.  They have the best selection and the best turn around times of any of the other DVD rental services on the Web.  In one month we rented more than 20 DVDs through Netflix for a flat fee.  If you are interested in signing up for Netflix, send me an email and I will send you a free month invitation from Netflix (subject to availability).

I'm now using the Roku player to download and watch content from Netflix.  So far, I am greatly impressed with the image quality, convenience, and price.   (New 5/09)

Music 

My favorite streaming online music resources are in order of preference:
  1. Accuradio.comAccujazz.com, a subset of Accuradio.com is my favorite Jazz station on the Web.  
  2. iTunes.com.  Although iTunes is designed as a for pay music resource, there is a great deal of free content.  The iTunes podcast option works great.  I have hundreds of podcasts collected in iTunes.  Highly recommended.  (New 5/09)
  3. Last.fm.com.  Last.fm is unique among the other sources listed here in that it has intelligence built into it.  This intelligence assists you in finding music that you may not know about, but matches your aesthetic interests. 
  4. Live365.com.  Like Shoutcast.com Live356 has many stations covering a wide range of music genres.  Unfortunately, some of these stations are not free.  A monthly subscription to Shoutcast.com unlocks the fee-based stations.  Even so, there are a great many free stations worth a listen.  Like Shoutcast.com, Live 365 also invites listeners to become broadcasters.  With competition from Shoutcast.com it is hard to see how Live365 can compete.  They also seem to have technical issues more often than other services. 
  5. Loudcity.com.  A large selection of music genres are available at Loudcity.com.  I use this resource when I want to listen to Radio Dismuke which is a collection of vintage popular music.
  6. Magnatune.  The quality of the music found at Magnatune is step above most stations. (New 5/09)

    Danza D Amore by Amelia Cuni
     

    Trad by Barry Phillips
     



    The Airs of Wales by Cheryl Ann Fulton
     
     
  7. Microsoft Media Player Radio Tuner.  Assuming that you are using the Windows operating system, open the Microsoft Media player and select radio tuner.  Type in a genre and you will be shown a list of stations.  The classification is not entirely accurate, so don't be surprised if you find an Indiana radio station when you type in India.  Some of the stations require that their home page be opened and then you have to select the play music option.  Some of those stations are loaded with commercials.  Not recommended.
  8. Real Network.  To use the Real Player, you will need to download their Real Player from Real.com.  Be cautious when you navigate the Real Network Web site.  They want you to buy a commercial version of the Real Player.  You have to look carefully to find the free download.  One the Real Player is loaded, you will be able to listen to a wide range of music sources on the Web.  The Real Player radio tuner has free and fee-based channels.  The free channels are good and similar to the ones available through Microsoft's Media player.
  9. Shoutcast.com. Thousands of free stations.  The sound quality is excellent.  The range of contemporary, ethnic, and other genre stations is amazing.  If you want to get involved, you can set up your own station on Shoutcast.

Ethnic Music Resources on the Web

Afghanistan

  • RanaFM.  Broadcast from Kandahar.  (New 5/09)

Indian music

A huge collection of Indian Carnatic music.  

Latin

Russian music

Serbian Orthodox Choral Chants

Movies

  • Hulu.com.  This is the future of television and movies.  Unlike YouTube, the quality of the imagery is much better and there is a huge selection.  Highly recommended.   (New 5/09
  • Youtube.com is no doubt the most impressive of the online movie publishing Web sites.  As usual, 98% of their content is pure junk and a waste of time.  The remaining 2% can be very interesting.  For example, expect to videos of police brutality, disasters, and timely video to show up here first. 

News

If you would like to hear a more liberal or leftist slant on the news, I recommend listening to: 

Many people don't know that they can receive C-Span video and audio over the Web.  If you like to hear more than sound bites, spend more time at C-Span.

Online radio

Have you ever come home late from work and missed All Things Considered on NPR? You can time shift by going to an National Public Radio (NPR) station a couple time zones to the West and start listening at the top of the program. If you missed a day and you want to listen to a previous program, all of the NPR programs are archived online.

My favorite NPR program is This American Life.  This program is pure radio at its best.  The stories told and the style they are told in demonstrates how good radio can be.  And like most NPR programs it is archived.  This means that you can scan through the topics at their Web site and pick programs that you missed and listen to them at the time of your choosing.  Unfortunately, This American Life seems to be going out their way to make it difficult for Web users to access their content, especially on Windows Mobile PDAs.  They are becoming more aggressive in finding ways of limiting access to free listening.  My expectation is that they will soon drive away their most loyal users and eventually become history. 

My method for listening to This American Life is to capture the programs in real time using TotalRecorder and then transferring them to my PDA.  This takes time and encourages me to seek other programming that is more accessible.   

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is another online radio news source that I tune into often.  I particularly enjoy listening to the BBC World Service for news.  However, I will sometimes listen their comedy and music stations as well. 

The BBC is going out of their way to make listening to their programming on PDA with Internet access.  Their radio player software does not work on Windows PDAs.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), like the BBC is an excellent resource for news and cultural programming.  My favorite CBC program is Ideas.  This program is about as intellectual and interesting as radio gets.  (New 5/09

Directories of other online radio and television stations

You can look radio and television stations that broadcast on the Web by going to sites like:  There are more directories of online radio and television sources at:  Yahoo search for online radio directories.

Online TV

  • Reuter's TV News.  What I enjoy most about Reuter's TV is their raw news feeds from breaking news stories from around the world.  This is where news networks obtain their film clips.

 

 

©1995- 2009 Max Lent
Add this page to your favorites

[ Home | Services | Contact | FAQ | Ideas | Globalization | News | Search  | Articles | Links | Travel |
| Intellectual PropertyKnowledge Management | InfoRochester.com | Web Sites ]

Contact Information:

Max Lent
Business and Web Consultant
812 Coventry Drive, Webster, NY 14580
Telephone: 585-670-9707